Silas

That motherfucker. That absolute asshole. That piss-poor excuse for a partner and a human being. He cheated on me? And then he pretended he hadn’t after I’d lost my memory? What the actual fuck?

Pacing in my empty condo, I alternated between seething with rage and absolutely crumbling from hurt. Sometimes I even managed both at the same time, which fucking sucked.

I couldn’t believe this. I was more lost and vulnerable than I’d ever been in my life, and the one person who knew my situation had turned out to be a complete fucking douche canoe, and I had no idea how to process any of this. What was I supposed to do?

I needed to vent. Ideally while my blood alcohol content was dangerously high. And under normal circumstances, I had my sister and any number of friends who’d gladly get drunk with me so we could bitch about whoever’s ex-partner had fucked up most recently.

These were anything but normal circumstances, though. I couldn’t talk to any of them now. Not without first explaining what was going on with my memory, and I was way too worked up and freaked out to go over that again. No, I needed to cut right to the part that had me livid and devastated and…

How the hell could he cheat on me?

What the fuck, George?

This was too much. All of it. Ironically, the thing I wanted more than anything to was to forget. Forget about waking up in an unfamiliar place. Forget about George being so sweet and kind. Forget about him actually being a bottom-feeding slime ball who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.

I didn’t want to forget it all permanently, but I did want to forget it today.

And fortunately, I didn’t need a fae’s help for that.

Ugh.Fuck. Mistakes were made.

I had no idea how much I’d drunk last night, but I felt every drop of it now.

“Oh my God,” I croaked as I sat back against the bathroom wall. I was pretty sure I was done getting sick. Mostly sure. Kind of… Well, hopeful.

I wiped a clammy hand over my face. I had succeeded in forgetting everything last night, but I was sure paying for it now. Would that fae have some kind of potion that could make me forget last night specifically? Eh, probably not a good idea to try. I’d end up taking too much and forgetting math or something.

Eventually, I was confident my stomach was done punishing me, and I got up off the floor. As my throbbing head cleared, I was more than a little relieved to recognize my surroundings. It was still the alien bedroom and bathroom from yesterday, but at least it hadn’t all completely reset into something else. At this point, I’d take it.

I went through my normal routine of getting a shower and some coffee, trying not to think too hard about when I’d changed body wash brands or switched to this particular type of coffee. They both smelled pleasant and the coffee was strong, so… fine. Gold star for the me who’d been living the year of my life I couldn’t remember.

And I still couldn’t remember it. There was still a giant void between the last night I’d spent with George and yesterday, and yet that giant void felt like a blink to me. A single night of sleep. It seemed impossible that so much life—not to mention heartache—had occurred, that such an enormous span of time had passed, and it was just… gone. Was this what it was like for someone who’d woken up from a coma or something? Like they came to and thought they’d only been out for a few minutes or hours, but it turned out months or years had passed, and they didn’t know which way was up?

No idea. And while I still didn’t remember the last year of my life, I sure as hell remembered yesterday. I couldn’t sit still. I was fuming, and I had no idea what to do with all this pent-up anger. Maybe I’d kicked George out too soon. I should’ve verbally reamed him out, gone another round just to be sure, then booted his sorry ass out of my life.

It was also weird and unsettling that the revelation about him cheating hadn’t jostled my memories loose. My social media posts, George’s confirmation, Lia’s words—how was it they hadn’t unlocked the missing time? Did that mean my memory truly had been wiped clean? Was… Was a year of my life irreversibly gone?

Fuck. That was terrifying. Even if it meant I never remembered losing George, the entire year couldn’t have been terrible. Hell, there was that photo in my bedroom of an apparently enjoyable day out hiking with my sister and her kids. I had no idea when it was taken. Had I lost that dayandthe birth of my niece or nephew? Was Shiloh still pregnant? Jesus fuck, how could I just… not know that? And what else had I lost? Was there any hope of ever getting it back? Because if yesterday hadn’t jogged my memory, I didn’t imagine anything could.

But there was the fae. The one who’d sold me whatever was on that receipt. The shop was open today, so once I’d caffeinated away my hangover, I could go find out what she’d sold me and how to undo it. If it was even possible to undo it.

I was supposed to go with George.

“Goddammit,” I groaned into the stillness, rubbing my throbbing forehead with the heel of my hand. This was all such a mess. Part of me still defaulted back to us being together. I kept thinking I should text him or call him; that I wanted him here with me. Then I’d remember, and… ugh.

I didn’t know how to be George’s ex. Supposedly I had a whole year of experience hating him and being done with him, but that was a fresh wound now. One I couldn’t process. I knew what he’d done, but I also needed the man he’d been for me yesterday.

“What is wrong with me?” I whispered.

A lot of things, apparently.

Coffee wouldn’t solve it, but it was making my head feel better, so I made another cup. As I numbly sipped it, I couldn’t stop rolling everything George had said yesterday around in my mind. Everything Lia had said, too.

“I know it probably doesn’t mean much,” she’d told me, “but he’s been a mess over this. He’s been a different person ever since the two of you broke up. And he came in here and let me prod at his wounded arm just so he’d have an excuse to ask me how to tell you the truth without hurting you more than necessary.”

The thing was, I knew Lia. She wasn’t one to pussyfoot around tough stuff, and she didn’t sugarcoat a damn thing. I mean, she was super gentle with pet owners when she had to deliver alarming or upsetting news. She wasn’t a monster. She just didn’t see any point in glossing over harsh truths. She was that friend who would absolutely tell you to dump your dickhead boyfriend, and she wouldn’t pull punches about it.

This was not a woman who would’ve hesitated to tell me if George had brushed off what he’d done or thought he could take advantage of my memory loss to slide back into my life. She’d tell me straight if he had, and she’d tell him to eat a giant bag of dicks while she was at it.

So… I believed her.

Which meant that, by extension, I believed him when he said he’d been on his way over here to tell me the truth.

But I still had so, so many questions.

Once my head had stopped aching enough that I could look at my phone without puking, I found him on social media, unblocked him, and tapped on his profile. It was surprisingly sparse; he’d been pretty active on here for as long as I’d known him, but these days, he sometimes went weeks without posting at all.

His relationship status wasn’t visible. He’d occasionally share memes, usually relating to life as a veterinarian, and he’d post links to animal-related charities or articles about exotic pets.

About three months ago, he’d gone on a tirade about a few states that were relaxing restrictions surrounding ownership of certain animals.

No one—and I mean no one—needs to own a Kludde, he ranted, but who in their right mind thinks people with children should have them? IDGAF about your freedom, you morons. If you have kids, you shouldn’t have the freedom to own a creature that will literally murder them. What the actual fuck?

I couldn’t help the quiet chuckle as I read that. George didn’t object to people owning exotic creatures, but nothing spun him up faster than irresponsible people owning them.

Case in point—about a month before that post, he’d written:

What is the Texas legislature smoking and in what quantities? Seriously. Someone tell me. Because that’s the only explanation for this bill loosening the regulations for when basilisks need to be hooded. Do you want more basilisk-related deaths? Because that’s how you get more basilisk-related deaths.

I again managed a halfhearted laugh. George had never been a fan of people owning those creatures. Like, vocally anti-keeping-them-as-pets. Then one had killed him for forty-three seconds, and ever since, he’d been loudly and hilariously passionate about how fucking stupid it was to sign up to be around them. And I…

I caught myself missing those rants. When he’d come home from work, and after he’d showered, I’d sit on our bed while he got dressed and went on and on about “fucking jack wagons who need a murder lizard to prove how manly they are” and “What even is the point? On a good day, they’re about as friendly as a hellhound getting its anal glands expressed!”

God, I really did miss his comical tirades. And how he’d blush and roll his eyes when I reminded him that he was a big old softy who’d actually been sad when that clutch of basilisk hatchlings had gone home with their foster family. I missed how we both knew that no matter how much he thought basilisks were foul-tempered and dangerous as pets, he’d treat them as kindly and fully as he would any animal who came into his clinic. That was one of the things I’d loved about him from the start—how he was such a sucker for animals.